Barcelona top Europe with remarkable 42.53% shot conversion rate this season | OneFootball

FC Barcelona are set to return from the international break with a rescheduled La Liga game against Osasuna tonight. The Catalan club has hardly had a chance to rest and recover, and this game could turn out to be difficult for them.

For starters, Hansi Flick will be without Raphinha and Ronald Araujo, who are on long flights back from South America. The German coach confirmed that the two would miss out and the former will be a huge loss for the team.

Barcelona’s attack has been the best in Europe thus far this season and much of the success needs to be credited to Raphinha. However, as per Mundo Deportivo, the Catalan club’s success this season is beyond the good form of just the attacking trio.

As per the report, Barcelona have been the most effective team in the top five European leagues, converting the highest percentage of their shot on target into goals. 42.53% of the shots that the Catalans shoot at goal end up in the back of the net.

In the top five European leagues, they lead the likes of Wolfsburg, Espanyol, Inter Milan, and Newcastle United in this regard. This 42.53% is a significant improvement on the 34.55% that they had last season under Xavi Hernandez.

Even on the continental front (Champions League, Europa League, and Conference League), Flick’s squad has a 46.97% efficiency rate. Three teams are ahead of them: Legia Warsaw (48.57%), IF Elfsborg (50%), and Dinamo Zagreb (50%). Of course, this is skewed by the fact that Barcelona have had significantly more shots on target.

For quite some time now, one of the biggest criticisms of Barcelona is that they have been extremely inefficient in front of goal and it is good to see them improve massively in this regard, at least as per the statistics.

Among the front three, Raphinha, in particular, has been extremely clinical in front of goal, and the Brazilian is having an excellent campaign. If he can maintain the same kind of efficiency going forward, it should help Barcelona win trophies this season.